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Serials Management Project 2011

For over a decade, managing serials collections in academic libraries has been a challenge in an environment of annual serials price inflation of 5-9% and budgetary uncertainty. During the last decade, the UCI Libraries acquired access to a significant number of new serials to support growing and new academic programs. At the same time, UCI negotiated aggressively to get the best deal possible for access to licensed resources.

Given the budget situation this fiscal year and continued serials inflation costs, we must continue to reduce our serials in order to achieve a balanced collections budget. We will try to do this while maintaining support for the teaching, research, and clinical priorities for library resources.

One strategy is to cancel serial subscriptions that are low use or where similar content exists in another source. This strategy has been implemented on both the local scale and throughout the University of California system. In addition, we have examined standing orders for monographic series (aka “continuations”) and will be acquiring titles on a more selective basis.

May 2011
Springer Titles to Be Discontinued on a UC-Wide Level

Within the UC system, two-thirds of our expenditures are directed toward journal purchases, many of them in large packages such as Springer. Given the current budget situation, the UC has no choice but to scale back these packages. The titles were selected using a number of metrics, including usage, cost per use, impact factors, and citation behavior. Our goal was to cancel titles that had low usage across the system and to retain high priority titles. We also added critically new Springer titles that the UC faculty had requested. Additional information on this process is available at the California Digital Library's webpage. Unfortunately, because this is a system-wide decision, we will not be able to reinstate any of these titles.

Duplicate Print, Low Use, or Similar Content Titles to be Discontinued

In an effort to reduce recurring expenses, we have continued to review our local holdings as well. These lists are composed of serial titles that are duplicate print subscriptions, have low use, or where similar content exists in another source. The subscriptions to these titles will be discontinued.

While we have carefully reviewed these titles, we understand that there may be special circumstances concerning a particular title. We ask that you inform us of that and share comments by contacting your Subject Librarian or Lorelei Tanji, AUL for Collections by Thursday, June 30, 2011.

January 2011
Duplicate Print, Low Use, or Similar Content Titles to be Discontinued

While we have carefully reviewed these titles, we understand that there may be special circumstances concerning a particular title. We ask that you inform us of that and share comments by contacting your Subject Librarian or Lorelei Tanji, AUL for Collections by Friday, February 18.

September 2010
Duplicate Print, Low Use, or Similar Content Titles to be Discontinued

In September, we reviewed lists of continuations and serial titles that were duplicate print subscriptions, had low use, or where similar content existed in another source. The subscriptions to these titles were discontinued. While we carefully reviewed these titles, we understood that there may have been special circumstances concerning a particular title and asked that you inform us of that and share comments by contacting your Subject Librarian or Lorelei Tanji, AUL for Collections by Monday, November 1.

3. Continuations Titles (pdf)
(Continuations are standing orders for monographic series, where we automatically acquire every title in a series. These series titles are often published every several years or at irregular intervals. The strategy is to stop the “standing order” and to selectively choose the titles needed from the series as they are published.)